Sunday, March 13, 2016

We met Elizabeth last fall on the Arroyo Arts Collective Discovery Tour. She was showing her work on the front terrace at the home of Roderick Smith. Douglas wanted to buy one of her pieces but she had no interest in selling her work, she just wanted people to see it. So we put her in the window.
When asked to describe her paintings, she had few words, "My work is brut, the creatures do the talking". Roderick however had more to say, ""Powerful series of portraits! No question they are arrows of fire. Emotional bursts of color landing with psychological precision. Primitive and alive. Unschooled and unwilling to bend to any orthodoxy. These are not pictures, they are exhalations of the spirit. It's the real thing!"

Patricia's work it layered paint on panels. When I asked her about her process, she said "I am interested in paint as a physical material. I like to layer it on until it's thick enough to pull it off of the canvas, then I cut it up and work with it dry. The process is similar to what we did as kids, covering our hands in glue, so that we could peel it off."

Patricia teaches painting at the Armory Center for the arts in Pasadena, and Design at Mount St. Mary's University. She is also a fabulous web designer!